SU's fighter for public tax data wins again

Susan B. Long sued the IRS years ago for access, won it,
lost it and wins it back.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

By Tim Knauss

Staff writer

In 1974, when she was a graduate student at the University
of Washington, statistician Susan B. Long sued the Internal
Revenue Service to get data on tax audits and other aspects
of the agency's tax collecting.

She won.

But Long, now a faculty member at Syracuse University, had
to return to court recently to force the Bush administration
to comply with the 1976 court order under which she has
received IRS information for three decades.

Friday, she won again.

A federal judge in Seattle ruled Friday that the IRS has 30
days to turn over to Long the data she has sought under the
Freedom of Information Act.

Long and former New York Times reporter David Burnham
teamed up in 1989 to found the Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse at SU, which publishes reports based on data
collected from the IRS and other federal agencies.

Burnham said the refusal to supply data has prevented TRAC
from fully reporting on how the IRS enforces tax laws.

"The IRS is, in some ways, the largest and most
powerful enforcement agency in the federal government,"
he said. "This refusal to let the public see
what's going on is outrageous."

Neither IRS officials nor Long could be reached Saturday
for comment.

Burnham said TRAC had not experienced problems receiving
data from the IRS until after President George W. Bush took
office. Before that, the IRS had complied with the 1976
consent order won by Long.

Scott Nelson, a lawyer from the consumer advocacy group
Public Citizen, represented Long in the dispute. He said in
late 2003 the IRS began withholding some of the information
it had previously supplied.

The data does not identify individual taxpayers, but provides details about the time and resources devoted to auditing individuals and businesses and how much the IRS collects as a result....